


sing my funeral song

by iniquiticity



Category: 18th & 19th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Grief, Grief Rage Drunk, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mourning, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5829592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iniquiticity/pseuds/iniquiticity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know that it had to be done,” Lafayette mumbled, his gaze still fixed on the corpse. “But I cannot deny that my heart aches at the result.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	sing my funeral song

**Author's Note:**

> for my amazing lafayandré family, esp stella & emery. 
> 
> thanks to jack/@dearlaurens for pestering fact questions & hamiltonshorn on tumblr for [sad inspiration](http://hamiltonshorn.tumblr.com/post/137513928512/lafayette-holding-andre-after-his-death-because-i). lyrics & title from "go to sleep" by the avett brothers, riffed [here](https://twitter.com/Gingerhazing/status/691845666293858305). thanks to kaylee & elliot for editing.
> 
> ed note: this story features a man tenderly holding a corpse; if corpses freak you out, do not read. also, while the characters referenced here reflect the Turn portrayals, the scene mentioned happens in the future of the TV show, although it has already happened in history (obviously). So if you are not familiar with the events of the John André story and don't want to be spoiled for the show, also don't read.
> 
> in an imaginary world where i have unlimited time and an amazing editor, this story isn't done. But. Well. i welcome your constructive criticism (as well as other feedback) in the comments, on twitter at @picklesnake, or on tumblr at [iniquiticity](http://iniquiticity.tumblr.com/).

*

_wipe the blood from your face and your hands_  
_forgive yourself if you think that you can_  
_go to sleep, go to sleep, my man_

*

 

With a sigh of relief, Alexander finished the last of the correspondence he had been ordered to handle, blew on the ink, and placed the final letter on the tall pile of parchment. In the morning, he would bring the whole pile down the hall to the main office to have Washington’s seal affixed to the letters, and then they would be sent off to wherever they were supposed to go. As it was, it was likely he was the only man awake in the building, perhaps besides sentries and any man too disturbed by war dreams. 

He ran a hand through his hair and stared into the dark camp from his window. There were a few sad fires still lit, and he had no lack of sympathy for the poor men assigned as guards. At least it had decided to stop snowing, and anyone outside would only be the victim of a knifelike winter wind. Practically a summer’s day, he thought, with a bitter chuckle. 

His eye caught, all of a sudden, on a blinking, small light in the distance. 

The smile twisted into a frown. It was too far out to be a sensible man's campfire, at least according to the mental map in his head. But there was something about the area far out there that stuck in his mind, as if it had been of some importance -- 

He closed his eyes, shuffling through mental papers of events. 

He knew, all of a sudden. The frown deepened to a scowl, his brow furrowing as he opened his eyes to study the far-off light. It was dim, as if a man was attempting to hide it. He picked up his sabre and clasped it to his side, then checked his pistol before putting it in his holster. He threw on his cloak and hat, checked to make sure he presented a respectable appearance, then put his stubby candle in a lantern and made his way out. 

He made sure to give the impression he was in a great hurry, and the men awake in the camp gave him nothing more than a frozen, weak salute. He might have made some comment, but it was not worth it to do so now. He pulled his cloak tighter around him and burrowed into it the best he could. The chill cut him to the core, and he thought with the peculiar self-deception of nostalgia the oppressive heat of St. Croix. Certainly that could not have been worse than feeling like the sun might never rise. He put his hand to his sabre as he came closer, silencing its rattle against his leg.

As he closed the distance, he noted several peculiar things about the flame he had seen from his window. For one, it was a lantern, not a fire, and two, the lantern was on the ground, under a tree. These facts, combined with his earlier realization regarding the importance of this tree and its location, set his stomach into an unsettled rumble not attached to their short commons. 

It did not seem that there could be a good reason for a lantern to be set next to a tree where a recently hanged body was lying, especially given that the body belonged to the British spy John André. 

He drew his sabre, as quiet as he could manage, and came closer.

He could now see the corpse on the ground in the pale light of the lantern, still in it’s red coat, sharp against the snow. The terrible weather kept the worst of nature from desecrating it; the order had been given that the man would be buried in the morning. Alexander glanced into the horizon to get a sense of time - it did not seem that would be for several hours.

He held his lantern up. 

There was another man there, sitting against the tree with the corpse. The man was still. Dead? He couldn't tell. The man was an officer, for sure. His gold epaulets glittered in the light. He had on a dark cloak, and a fashionable wig, and -- 

Alexander knew the man. 

He sheathed his sabre and sighed in relief, the tension going from his shoulders. Then, perhaps understanding the new set of problems based on the circumstances, he pressed his lips together and hurried the last few steps, setting his lantern down next to the one already there. He crouched next to the man against the tree and studied him for a moment before he put his hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. 

The man startled awake and stared up at him just-woke confusion, as if he was still gripped by some dream he had been having. A raw anguish flickered in his bloodshot eyes, and there was the glisten of dried tears on his cheeks, reflecting in the light of their lanterns; despite his rich clothes and his young face, he seemed immensely worn and tired. A moment later, his sense seemed to return to him, and long breath escaped his lips. His gaze shifted away from Alexander, back to the corpse’s head, which had been resting his lap. The handkerchiefs which the dead man himself had wrapped around his eyes had been pulled down so that his face was visible. In the cold night, Alexander found himself privately admitting that the body did not look so much dead as ethereal, like André had secretly been some kind of fairy or spirit from beyond, and had temporarily left the form behind to address some issue on another plane. 

The living man did not look back at him after that, and seemed to be more weighed down by his deep thoughts, clear in his eyes, than disturbed by the cold.

“My dear Marquis,” Alexander said, gently, reaching up and rearranging the white curls of his wig, which had gone awry with the winter wind and the tree he had fallen asleep against. “Do not make us have to bury two corpses tomorrow. Come inside.”

The man, the Marquis de Lafayette, did not look at him. Instead, the man's gloved hand drew down the side of the corpse’s face tenderly, then took a small lock of hair the dead man had braided individually from his queue in his fingers. There was a peculiar sort of fashion to it, and made moreso by the fact that the braid had been much longer in the past, perhaps cut from a near-miss by a weapon.

“His fate is in God’s hands now. Certainly He has seen the man’s conduct and will judge him appropriately,” Alexander added, to disturb the heavy silence. He had liked the dead man, and found him a fantastic example of dignity and virtue. That being said, he had not liked the man as much as Lafayette had liked the man. He could still recall the clear memory of finding Lafayette’s quarters and asking him if he was going to attend the hanging, only to be met with a slumped back and a shake of the man’s head, and what sounded unmistakably like a soft weeping. Secretly, Alexander had found himself glad then - and now - that Lafayette had not attended. 

“I know that it had to be done,” Lafayette mumbled, his gaze still fixed on the corpse. “But I cannot deny that my heart aches at the result.” 

“I wish he could have gone honorably,” Alexander said.

He knew the Frenchman had submitted a request that the man be shot rather than hanged, a decent death - but the general had denied it. He had submitted a similar request, but the general had shot his down as well, because nothing was more in General Washington’s nature than to shoot down his requests.

“It is just…” Lafayette’s head drooped, as if he no longer had the strength to keep it up. He stroked the dead man’s cheek with the tenderness of a lover. “He seemed a man of such magnificent character, and possessing brilliant heart, and though I confess to know him only for a short time, I do not think I will meet a man like this again.” 

“I am sorry for your pain, my friend. He was a gentleman of the highest order. I would never deny that.” 

Alexander stood, after a moment, and collected his lantern. His stubby candle was in great danger of going out. “I do not wish to leave you in this hellish cold,” he said, “Can I entreat you to speak of your sorrows in my room, if that will reduce your pain? I will pour you some brandy.” 

Lafayette sighed, and Alexander could hear the misery in it. With trembling fingers, the Frenchman pulled the handkerchiefs over the dead man’s eyes again. Then, after a considering pause, he bent low to brush one of the handkerchiefs away and pressed a kiss to André’s blue lips. 

“Do you think me a traitor?” he whispered, a quiver in his voice. Alexander had to strain to hear him, as he still lingered low above the dead man’s face. 

“Of course not, my friend. You are a man who has lost someone dear.” 

As if it was painful to tear himself away, Lafayette slowly slid himself from under André. The man gathered his lantern, pulled his hat low over his eyes, and stood slumped, still staring down at the corpse. He shook his head, as if that would stop his troubles. “It is more sensible to discuss one’s sorrows with one’s living friend of which they are joined in cause, and with brandy, than to sit in the bitter wind with the corpse of an enemy.” 

“I am here,” Alexander said, gently, and he offered a handkerchief of his own so the Marquis could wipe his fresh tears.

“ _Merci,_ ” Lafayette said, and handed the handkerchief back after he had used it. They walked back to the headquarters. Alexander thought that the other man must not feel the cold, so wrapped in his grief, for there was something slow and deliberate about his steps, and he acknowledged no one, as if he could not see them. 

Alexander set his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering, but he would not hurry someone whose heart clearly showed his misery with every beat.

He thought of the dinner that André had had with them during his stay. By some quirk, André and Lafayette has ended next to each other, and André had moved the whole table to hysterical tears with the various minor calamities he had encountered upon planning General Howe's Mischianza. Then, somebody had thrown a rumor in that André could play the violin, and the man had said in his demure fashion he had a little talent. An instrument had been fetched, and he had serenaded the whole table and received a lively applause. 

“What else can you play, Major?” Sullivan had asked. “Will you make us think of our sweethearts?” 

“I may be able to, General,” André had said, and had played the most loving thing Alexander had ever heard. He had seen Eliza smiling so clearly, her beautiful face, one of her dresses. The thing had taken his breath away. 

Comically, André had leaned into each man (with the exception of Washington, as if knowing), pretending to be their dance partner, and caused another round of uproarious laughter. Lafayette had even offered his hand, dramatically smitten, and André had leaned into him and played a magnificent riff that seemed so unique and kind and thoughtful that Alexander had completely forgotten the man’s red coat. Alexander had suspected Lafayette had too; he remembered the way the Frenchman had gazed at the spy, with a new kind of understanding. Lafayette was abysmal at hiding his feelings on things, and this was no different. His eyes had seemed so openly affectionate and warm that Alexander had been concerned someone would say something. But they were all drunk, and the moment passed when André had put the violin down. 

Lafayette's gaze, Alexander seemed to recall, had followed André for a long time afterwards. Lafayette himself had followed the man back to the room where he was being kept, and the next day had extolled the man's virtues to Alexander endlessly. 

“His mother was French. That is the only explanation for a British man having such elegance. Do you know he also reads and writes poetry as well is being a capable artist? His manner, even under capture, is exquisite.”

“I am trying to work, Marquis,” Alexander had said. He felt a bit guilty about it, in hindsight.

An abrupt plunge into darkness brought him back into the present. He looked down at his lantern, which had gone out. Sighing, he glanced over his shoulder to where Lafayette was still a good two steps behind him, staring at the ground and walking without seeing. The Frenchman’s candle was used but not overmuch, and Alexander felt privately cheered he had collected his friend decently early in his mourning, before frostbite could set in and he would have himself a Marquis with a broken heart _and_ a few less fingers.

In the sad candlelight and the winter darkness, Lafayette looked almost as corpselike as the body they had left behind. His young face, which Alexander was accustomed to seeing twisted into a challenging smile, seemed devoid of any feeling at all. It was a new and unique sort of disturbing, he thought. Men died every day, in great numbers - the anguish of losing someone they knew was not uncommon. But that was not the way the Marquis looked. The Marquis looked like he would take one final step into some next, secret world and turn to stone or ice. As if he was about to accompany André on whatever journey he had left their mortal coil to go on. He did not acknowledge Alexander as he came close to share the lantern. Alexander plucked the light from his nerveless, unresisting hand and held it out in front of them. 

They managed to make it back to the headquarters, up the steps, and down the hallway to Alexander’s room. He quickly set both lanterns down, took off his jacket and hat, then went to his cabinet and pulled out a bottle of brandy. He poured some for them both. 

Lafayette did not see his glass of brandy. Instead, still in his jacket and hat, he sat on Alexander’s bed and looked at nothing. His hands made a cradle in his lap, the perfect size for the head of a dead man. 

“Have some brandy,” Alexander said, and he offered Lafayette a glass. The man’s eyes came into focus, and he took the glass and downed it in three quick gulps, then held it out in slightly shaking fingers for another helping. Alexander took the man's tricorne off his head as he refilled the glass, and then set both the bottle and the hat on his desk. He sat in his chair and drank some of his own; the warm of it burned down his throat and sat well in his stomach, an adequate replacement for a decent meal and more than adequate for kindling some warmth in his bones. He glanced out the window again, considering the time. He might not be needed for the morning.

“Is this not the general’s brandy?” Lafayette asked, disturbing his thoughts. 

“The general is the army, so the brandy is the army’s brandy, and we are both part of the army,” Alexander replied. “Plus, I cannot imagine he would be upset to know it has been used to comfort you. Will speaking of your troubles ease your sorrow?” 

“I simply…..” Lafayette took another sip, then stared into the amber liquid in this glass. “I feel as if my heart has been replaced with lead shot, _mon ami_. Or perhaps it has fallen out of my chest and frozen, and I am merely dragging it along, like a weight.” 

Alexander moved to sit next to his friend and put a comforting hand on his leg. Lafayette covered the hand with his own and squeezed it. 

“I knew the man for three days, Hamilton,” he mumbled. “And yet somehow I feel the candle of my soul has been extinguished knowing that he is gone from us. And the enemy, too! By God, man, has the winter dark driven me mad?” 

Lafayette caught his gaze, and a painful stab of sympathy knotted in Alexander's stomach. The man's face had twisted grotesquely, and the disturbing smoothness of his expression had broken away to reveal a pure, undistilled anguish. His whole self curled around the glass in lap, back and neck going weak. Alexander squeezed his thigh in the most comforting manner he could manage, but he had the sense that the man's grief was as unbreakable as the dark horizon. 

“You are not mad,” he replied, slowly, feeling out of his depth by the sense of misery that surrounded his friend. “André was a good man. He was easy to care for, and you are a man with a big heart who cared greatly for him. You need not pretend with me. I am your friend above all else.” 

“Alexander, I….” Lafayette whispered, in a voice that shook along with his hand. He managed another drink of his brandy, and then he pushed the glass into Alexander’s chest. Alexander took it, and then placed both glasses on his desk quickly before returning to the spot next to his friend. 

A peculiar sound escaped the Marquis’ lips. 

“Lafayette,” Alexander said, and he touched the man's shoulder as much tenderness as he could manage.

“Oh, Alexander,” Lafayette choked out, just barely, and the tremble in his hand spread up his arm and into his shoulder and before long he was quivering all over. Without preamble he buried his face in cotton of Alexander's sleeve and managed one, then another, wracking sob, and before long he had lost all control and was shaking wildly with the full force of his grief.

Alexander shifted so that he could take the sobbing Frenchman into his lap, hands feeling delicately at the man’s hairline and carefully sliding the wig away from his head. This set aside, he was more able to stroke his friend’s hair as he wept.

He had a sharp, painful flashback to his childhood. His room seemed smaller, for just a moment. He thought, all of a sudden, of the oppressive heat of his childhood home. Lafayette seemed so very young in his arms. 

He softly hushed the Frenchman and stroked his back. He felt wetness soak through his undershirt and chill against his chest. He didn’t mind. 

For while, this was all there was. 

“My apologies, Hamilton,” Lafayette rumbled, at some point, into his now-wet waistcoat, when he managed to speak. “I did not expect…” 

“Make no apologies, Marquis, for I will not accept them.”

They sat in silence, Lafayette curled against his chest. Alexander thought of the chair where his mother had always sat with him. 

Where she had died.

“He drew me a portrait,” Lafayette said, suddenly, disturbing his dream of the deceptive island sun. 

“Did he?” 

Instead of answering, the Marquis drew away to reach through his pockets and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He opened it slowly, still unable to suppress the last of the tremble in his hand. The sketch did seem to be done in a hurry, but there was still no lack of skill to be found on it. It was clearly the Marquis, sitting in a chair, grinning. There was the beginnings of definition to his face and his jacket, and the curls of his wig looped in even circles. 

“It’s beautiful,” Alexander said. Lafayette put the paper back in his pocket, now that it had accumulated a few teardrops.

“He said, if there was to be time, he would write me a song,” Lafayette said, and after a considering moment sat up again, resettling himself upon the bed. From another pocket, he pulled his own handkerchief, wiping his eyes. “But we both knew. He said I was the most remarkable Frenchman he had ever had the pleasure of meeting.” 

“Then he and I had something in common,” Alexander replied. 

Lafayette managed a shaky breath that barely resembled a chuckle. He blinked hard, as if willing himself to stop crying. Then, with a resolute sigh, he looked up at Alexander. “Might I have my brandy back? Certainly the general will be upset if we pour it and do not drink it.” 

Alexander nodded, got up, and fetched both their brandy glasses. Lafayette looked at his, then held it up. 

“To Major John André, a spirited soldier for his people, and a dignified gentleman,” he said. There was all of a sudden something in his voice that Alexander decided he didn’t like - something new, something that twisted like a thornbush. Something that he had not seen, as if fire had burned off his grief and left him only with emptiness, and the bare, terrible unfairness of life and the war. 

Alexander had seen men twist like too-loose sails, snapping back and forth from misery to hysteria. He had learned many times of madness in his life, and was not sure if this could be the worst. 

Drink usually did not help, he thought, watching with a low kind of dread as Lafayette drained the glass. 

He frowned as he met the man's bloodshot eyes. Stormclouds had gathered behind his gaze, as if some unwieldy, chaotic creature had wrestled the reins of his thoughts away from the man Alexander knew. 

He took Lafayette's empty glass without the man's complaint and put it down on the desk along with his, still half-full; there was something peculiar in the air which gave him the thought it would be ill-advised to lose his wits. It wouldn't take much to do so on short commons. Lafayette was also on short commons.

“I'll refrain from mentioning you did not patiently enjoy the general's brandy,” Alexander said, in an attempt at a joke, but he found that he could not manage to sound as light as he had intended. The shadows in the room twisted like claws, and where they touched him, he felt an unearthly cold.

“Pour me another glass, if you will, Hamilton,” Lafayette said, in a strained sort of voice. Alexander looked at him and saw the peculiarity in the air had infected his friend, and he did not like it. There was a thick kind of silence in their fire-lit semidarkness. Alexander liked and generally found himself comforted by silence, for it was a good way for him to work out his own thoughts, but this one seemed ill at ease. Dangerous. Foreboding, perhaps. He was a soldier first, and knew better than to ignore his intuition, which screamed in the back of his mind to be alert. Despite the late hour and the tiredness and the brandy he had consumed, he found his heart pounding, and his senses seemed oversharp. 

“I think two glasses is enough,” he said, and the cheer in his voice was clearly forced. He twisted his lips up in a pale shadow of a smile, trying to shift away. The warning in the back of his head intensified as Lafayette looked at him. Lafayette had never looked at him that way before. 

Alexander would duel any man who called him a coward, but a queer sort of fear had began to form a hard lump in his chest, and he subtly brought a hand to his belt to reassure himself with the presence of his sabre. 

“I think I shall have another,” Lafayette said, and his voice was clipped and strange - wholly out of character for the man he knew to be notoriously easygoing and relaxed. The Frenchman's eyes met Alexander’s, and his gaze had a manic sort of gleam to it, as he had gone careening over some imaginary edge of sensibility. The hairs at Alexander's neck stood up straighter, if such a thing was possible, and his pulse quickened further. “Pour me another glass, Colonel.”

The words had the sharp edge of an order. He desperately wished for Laurens, who would have known just the thing to defuse the situation, which seemed to have become unmanageable without him realizing it. But it was only them in the twilight-colored room, and the darkness seemed thicker around the Marquis, as if it was a beast with claws that Alexander could see if he squinted. 

“My dear Marquis,” he said, softly, unmoving, and despite his fear reached for the man’s shoulder, as if to pull him from his bout of madness.

“My brandy, Colonel,” Lafayette said, his voice harsh like sandpaper as he pulled back, hiding himself in the darkness that coiled around him like a serpent. “Or are you to display your trademark insubordination? I will not suffer it as the general does. I will have you flogged.” 

Alexander found that despite the threat, the only emotion he could conjure was pity. He tried to imagine the man’s grief, that it had twisted him around into rage. He found he could not adequately envision the horror. 

“Gilbert,” he murmured, “You should rest.”

The darkness snapped at him like a maw, the sound of it provided by Lafayette as he drew his weapon and stood, in one jagged movement. He staggered on his back foot, and for a second Alexander thought he might fall over, but he did not. 

“I will remove your recalcitrant hand from your wrist, Colonel,” he snarled, slurring the syllables into one another. 

Alexander thought to draw his weapon, but decided against it; he had seen the terror the man could be on the battlefield, and he did not have confidence he could overpower him even when he was drunk. He could tackle the Frenchman, but that would wake up half the headquarters, not to mention he was not sure he could manage such a thing without being run through. It was a last-ditch thing to attempt.  
With the deliberate slowness one might effect as if they were trying not to upset a bear, Alexander stepped towards the brandy and the two glasses. He poured a small amount into the glass Lafayette had used. 

Lafayette sheathed his weapon. “Very good, colonel. Now, give it to me.” 

Alexander did not think Lafayette had switched into his native language intentionally. The French syllables, usually as elegant as silk, seemed jagged like knives. 

He handed the glass over, and Lafayette snatched it from his grip. The brandy sloshed up against the walls of glass with the choppiness of the motion. He took a large gulp, which drained most of the small portion, and then threw glass at the wall, where it shattered and rained shards and brandy over the bed Laurens usually slept in. Alexander startled, his eyes flitting to the wall where brandy now dripped, back to Lafayette, a sick horror accompanying his pity. 

The wall in question was shared on the other side by General Washington’s bedroom, who was not known for being a deep sleeper. He strained his ears for footsteps. 

“The other glass, colonel,” Lafayette snarled, having redrawn his sabre. 

There was no choice now to be made; Lafayette had steadily removed Alexander’s options, one by one, as he fell deeper into his madness. The further he descended, the more Alexander pitied him, and the more he realized that desperate actions had to be taken so the man did not do something terrible that he would regret. He glanced over the room, seeing it with new eyes, trying to formulate a strategy. Between the brandy and the fireplace, he had to consider that setting the headquarters on fire would not recommend either of them to the general. 

He reached for other glass, still with a bit of brandy in it, then covered his feint with a fake-stumble and knocked the thing over instead. Behind him, Lafayette cried out in rage and swung his weapon. Alexander, predicting this, ducked under the blade, then turned and hurled himself at the Marquis. It was a dishonorable, disgusting move, far below the chief staff aide of a proper army, but it was perfectly suited to a bastard orphan of no station. 

Lafayette went down in surprise, the wind knocked out of him, and his head made a substantial _thunk_ against the floor, the sabre flying out of his grip and landing in front of two large bare feet. Alexander stared at the feet, having ended up on top of the Marquis, and then looked up to see the general in his nightclothes pointing a cocked pistol at the combined mess of bodies, his expression one of completely unfamiliar bafflement. 

“Excellency!” he hissed, in a shocked whisper. “Be hidden for his sake!” 

Perhaps out of nothing more than sheer confusion, Washington retreated into the hallway. 

The dazed Lafayette gazed without seeing at Alexander or the general. Then, slowly, his eyes came back into focus in a series of furious blinks. He managed a low moan of horror, realizing perhaps what had happened, and curled up on himself, covering his face with his hands. 

Alexander had never felt a still silence so painful and sharp. He had come across the bloodied body of his cousin that was all the family he had left; he had crawled out of hurricane debris and seen his levelled home; he had looked out at Valley Forge from his window and seen their army starving and freezing to death. Those pains were spread out, like blood jam on bread. This silence was concentrated so wholly into the fetally-curled body of his friend that it seemed it had replaced his flesh. His heart pulsed with sorrow instead of blood, and his muscles were made only of grief. 

The distant sound of sobs met his ears. A new swell of pity seized him. 

He realized he did not know what to do. 

He stood, paralyzed, in the center of the room. He was not even comforted by the loss of the beast of the darkness, which had melted into the Marquis’ shadow. Instead, the loss resulted in a peculiar, deeply unsettling emptiness in the room, as if someone had removed all the air in it without telling his lungs.

“Lafayette,” he said, feeling as if all the energy had gone from him, “Come to bed.” 

The man’s agony did not appear to be disturbed.

He realized that he could not cover the vast depths between them, despite that it was only a step or two. Alexander could see, somehow, the monstrous chasms that had opened up around Lafayette, as if a river of despair had overflowed it’s banks, filled with vicious rapds and known-but-unseen currents. He’d already dragged himself from drowning once. He did not know what another attempt might look like. 

Instead of roaring, this river wept. 

He felt uncharacteristically weary. He had worked for days and never stopped and marched for miles and never slowed, and yet somehow those efforts did not compare to this moment. He sat on the edge of his cot in silence, eyes steady on the coil of Frenchman on the floor and the vast, shadowy distance between them. 

After what seemed like a long while, he stood and began to clean the mess of the room. He uprighted the glass he had knocked over and put Lafayette’s sabre on the desk. He stared, no closer to the solution, at the mess of the major general still lying on his floor. This could not be cleaned so easily. 

The beginning of the sunrise was starting to make itself known through his window. While the shreds of light shrunk the mourning shadows that surrounded his friend, Alexander could still firmly sense the chill of the endless grief and freezing rivers, and still did not know how to drag his friend to dry upon the banks.

**Author's Note:**

>  **FURTHER READING** : It is canon that Lafayette cried about John André's hanging (cited, for one [here at the NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/17/bookend/bookend.html)). You can read the full letter Hamilton wrote to Laurens about André's hanging [here](http://founders.archives.gov/?q=john%20laurens%20Author%3A%22Hamilton%2C%20Alexander%22%20Recipient%3A%22Laurens%2C%20John%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=11&sr=lau#ARHN-01-02-02-0896-fn-0010), and he does a pretty good job summarizing the whole situation. @dearlaurens on twitter has a good write-up about the letter [here, on tumblr](http://majorandre.tumblr.com/post/137721852154/you-said-that-hamilton-wrote-a-4k-word-letter-to). You can also read a letter André wrote in captivity to General Clinton [here](http://clements.umich.edu/exhibits/online/spies/letter-1780sept29pt1.html).


End file.
